Why bother writing a blog post?

Two years ago I wrote a blog post about a product we print. It’s a bit of a niche product, but great fun to design and work out how the promotion will work. I’m talking about scratchcard printing.

Well, we’ve just had another order for them as a result of the blog. This takes the total over £14,000 worth of business from this blog post over the last two years. That’s some blog post.

Blogging helps your SEO (when done correctly) but also can help position you as the ‘go to’ person. The guy with all the answers.

Here are four things to have in mind when writing blog posts.

1) What is your objective?
Are you looking to build a mailing list, raise awareness for a certain product or present yourself as an expert in the area? It could be all of these things, but keep it simple and pick one.

2) Do your research on the Title
What are people searching for? If you are writing about your pub or restaurant, are people looking for a type of cusine or searching ‘best restaurant in’ your town? Make sure you add that phrase into the title and remember people ask Google questions like they used to ask a mate!

3) Don’t give too much away!
Always ask for something in exchange if you are giving away valuable information. For example, if you have a guide to getting the best out of a brand of mobile phone, you might want to email it to people so you get their email address in return, asking them if they would like more information in the future. This kind of thing can be automated, ask us how!

4) Little and often
Make your blogs as short as three or four paragraphs. People have a very short attention span these days. Write in short sentences and make it dead simple to understand.

5) Pay attention to details
Hang on, I said four things… But if you are looking for a little inspiration on what to blog about, here’s a 10 page reference guide that I wrote. Blogging with WordPress